


Sharks in the Water

by Reiya_Inc



Category: Across the Universe (2007)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Love Confessions, M/M, Romance, Wartime Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 06:15:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiya_Inc/pseuds/Reiya_Inc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...one of the most beautiful and frustrating things about people was that they do change, even when you least expect it." </p>
<p>Of regrets, complicated love, and finding the road home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharks in the Water

**Author's Note:**

> Julie Taymor's sandbox, I just play in it. And the cadences belong to... whoever wrote them...

Sometimes, Max wasn't really sure if he was dreaming a very life-like dream or in the wake of a permanent euphoria.

At night he would return to his tent in the middle of the jungle and lie down on his cot and hold his rifle to his chest and sleep. When he slept, he was nine years old eating cereal at the breakfast table with Lucy on a Sunday morning and his father was reading the paper and his mother pouring orange juice. And everything was  _okay._

When Max awoke, sometimes it was to smoke and dust, a grey sky and red rain. He would rise and put on his gear and stalk the jungle, eyes ready, rifle loaded. He'd cross rivers and reeds along with his platoon always watching, always waiting to be attacked.

But this wasn't real. This world he watched from his peripherals and where the sound of deliverance was the click of the safety and a slow pull of the trigger.

No, it couldn't be real.

He was still in Jersey, still in college. Staying up all night drinking and partying then sleeping till noon the next day. That's where he really was, in the common room of his dorm,smoking with Jude. Jude with his dark brown hair and eyes and foreign laugh.

Sometimes, he could almost fool himself.

XxXxXxXx

"Oh hail, oh hail, oh infantry

The queen of battle followed me

'Cuz nothin' in this world is free

Some things will make you crazy..."

XxXxXxXx

Max took a drag from his cigarette and looked over his five cards, "Two packs."

The other men at the table eyed him carefully, weighing the possible reward against the almost certain loss. Only three met his [bet](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3849571/1/Sharks-in-the-Water); Chuck, Dave, and Walter. The only three who had earned enough that this loss wouldn't bother them too much.

"I'll be damned." Walter murmured under his breath as he stared out of the tent flap.

"What?" Max yawned.

"It stopped raining."

"That's bad luck you know, a break in the rainy season here." Dave discarded a card and drew another from the deck.

"Man, you think every damn thing's bad luck here. You could see the Virgin Mary herself walkin' around out there and you'd still say it's bad luck." Chuck grinned.

"Private Carrigan, get the fuck over here!" One of the sergeants yelled from outside.

"Shit. Go on and finish it, I'll be back in a minute." Max stubbed out his cigarette and ran out.

Sergeant first class Henderson was standing in the middle of the drop zone near a group of new privates, sending some away and shouting as usual. Max quickened his pace. Sergeant Henderson was one of those guys that you didn't want angry with you, which was unfortunate because the man was always angry.

"Yes, sergeant?"

"Carrigan, it seems that command has seen fit to give us a bunch of shitheads. Green shitheads. Regrettably, I can't put them all in a different platoon, so these eight now belong to third platoon. Show 'em to sergeant Wilson and tell him to split 'em up among the squads."

"Yes, Sergeant." Max turned and waved for them to follow as he headed to the sergeants' living area. The eight tailed him quietly.

Sergeant Wilson was reclining in a broken lawn chair reading a paperback novel.

"Sergeant Henderson told me to bring you the new greens and have you sort out them out between the squads, sergeant."

The sergeant just barely looked over the top of his book at the group, "You two in front, you're in third squad. You, on the left, you're in fourth. You on the right, you're in sixth. You three in back are in eighth. Go on, scatter."

They promptly did, except for one.

"There's one more, sergeant."

Wilson sighed, "Just put him in your squad, Carrigan, you all haven't had any greens for a while."

"Thanks, sergeant." Max replied dryly.

"Anytime, Carrigan."

XxXxXxXx

"So, what's your name?"

"Shears."

"I can see that, it's on your uniform. I meant your  _first_  name."

"Oh, it's Billy."

"Welcome to fifth squad, Billy. I'm Max."

"Where are ya from?"

"Hampshire, you?"

"Missoura."

"I'm sorry."

XxXxXxXx

That night Billy showed him a picture of his girlfriend. She was pretty, long red hair and a few freckles, dark brown eyes. Billy pulled out his dog tags, on the chain was a gold ring with a small diamond on it.

"I've been tryin' to find the perfect ring for Eleanor for months and I saw this in California right before I shipped out and right then I knew it." He held it up, "Ya think she'll like it?"

Max nodded, "Yeah, I think she will."

Billy grinned and tucked it back in his shirt, "Next letter then, I'm sendin' it."

Max turned over on his cot and listened to the rain.

XxXxXxXx

_What is the spirit of the bayonet?_

_TO KILL, KILL, KILL WITHOUT MERCY_

_What makes the green grass grow?_

_BLOOD, BLOOD, BRIGHT RED BLOOD_

_Why is the sky blue?_

_BECAUSE GOD LOVES THE INFANTRY_

_XxXxXxXx_

Max slept and thought of the nursery.

Except it wasn't the nursery he remembered with its wooded floors and vaulted ceilings. It was overrun with rats. They covered the floors and scurried up the walls, dropping once they reached the ceiling. They had chewed through nearly everything. All the sofas were now just metal skeletons and the tables had been filed down like coarse woodcarvings. Their furry bodies darted over his feet and around his ankles. He brought one foot up and stomped down as hard as he could in the middle of the swarm. He felt the crunch of bones. Max brought his other foot up and did the same.

Beneath him, the rats were in a frenzy, running every which way to avoid him, but there were so many, too many for them all to escape. Max stepped on another one, and when he lifted his foot, instead of finding a little pool of blood and broken tissue and a tiny crushed face with red beady eyes, he saw Prudence. Her small face all shrunk down and on a rat's body, her black hair matted and tangled around her head like a halo.

Max looked back; the other two rats were the same, except that one had a tiny Lucy head and the other a tiny Jude head. Their faces stared back up at him all cracked and disfigured a cherry stain against the ground.

Max woke with a start, but when he realized he was only on his cot and not in a rat-filled dorm he relaxed. He pushed the images of the dead rats out of his head and rolled onto his back. Max tasted blood in his mouth; he had chewed his lip during the night. Staring at the roof of the tent, he prodded the torn flesh with his tongue.

Sometimes, he just didn't feel it.

XxXxXxXx

A couple weeks later he got a letter from Lucy. She told him about work and the little things that were going on, how all the others were doing and how they all missed him. At the bottom Jude had sketched a bottle of beer and said that they'd see each other soon.

Max had kept the letter folded up in his jacket pocket. It had gotten wet and now Lucy's pretty handwriting was smeared and Jude's drawing was illegible. He'd started to get upset about it and then realized that it probably would have gotten wet anywhere he'd stashed it. He liked having it near him, though, that piece of paper that came from home. He needed the reminder that maybe one day he'd be back there and everything would go back to the way it was before.

Before. Before. Before.

Back when this place was so far away, like a star in the sky on a moonless night. When he glimpsed it only through words on paper and frozen frames. And life was just one big party, and all you ever did was whatever felt good. Back when Jude would crash on the couch with the sunlight streaming in and a joint in the crook of his mouth and ask lazily when he had to go to class. Max would laugh and say 'Fuck it.' Because he was still a little buzzed and somewhere he had lost a shoe that he would probably never find unless he remembered where he'd been.

Now he could see what a fool he'd been to give that up. He had everything, or at least as much as he ever would.

Ah, but that was the thing with life, wasn't it? It never told you when to hold and you were always walking backwards so you never could tell if something better was coming or if you just passed up the best thing you would ever have.

He could have been happy there. Maybe. Maybe if he knew what it truly was, he would have spotted it when he saw it.

Sometimes he wonders if Jude thought back on those days and thought them among his best or if now he had truly found happiness and it didn't really have anything to do with him. Now, all he had was this life. This life that had taught him the killing radius of a hand grenade and the most efficient way to use his bayonet; when it was time to apply a tourniquet and when it really didn't matter. This life that had given him the taste of ash in his mouth and that feeling of just being  _way too late_. And he knows, with an almost-grin tugging against his lips, that the things he's done will always be reflected in the things he  _will_  do because that's the way karma works, or maybe just life in general.

Maybe he would ask Jude one day if he still thought about that time back at Princeton, right after Labor day, when the leaves had started to turn they had both noticed the change. Did he think about it and wished it had been different?

But Max wasn't sure he had the courage to ask that because there was nothing more embarrassing than admitting that you regret following your own advice. And if he did ever ask and Jude did ever answer, what if he said yes? Could Jude ever forgive him for being so cruel?

He had to have known when it started what Max would do. He was reckless and irresponsible and had that ability to be involved in everything but committed to nothing. He must have known that there would be no afterwards, that it would never be anything more and that later Max would tell him to pretend like it never happened because it was just a  _mistake_ and they'd both had been way too drunk.

Oh, he'd been such a fool.

XxXxXxXx

"Around her hair she wore a yellow ribbon

She wore it in the springtime in the merry month of May

And if you asked her why the hell she wore it

She wore it for a soldier who was far, far away…"

XxXxXxXx

It was March 15th when the shit finally hit the fan. Max had been waiting for it because it was as inevitable as saying that his family was going to have cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. The only reason he knew the date was because Billy had just gotten a letter back from Eleanor saying yes and he had told everyone in the squad and Dave had mumbled something about it being the ides of March, but no one was really listening because they had also received a set of orders to move out from sergeant Henderson.

Third and Fourth platoon had been passing through the rushes when they were ambushed. Instantly, everyone dropped to the ground and tried to form a line of fire on the enemy. Fourth platoon scrambled behind cover and was firing at the enemy head on, facing north, while third platoon formed a line on their left and fired facing east. Once the line was set sergeant Wilson yelled for third to assault through the enemy while fourth shifted their sectors of fire so as not to accidentally shoot their own.

They started to charge, but the Vietcong knew how they were trained to react to ambushes and turned their fire on the approaching soldiers. Max dropped behind a tree and poked his head far enough around the trunk so that he could fire semi-accurately. They had tossed a smoke grenade to mask their advancement and now it was wafting through, blocking his vision. He fired blindly into the smoke screen, hearing screams from the other side.

Click.

A stab of panic hit his gut as his rifle jammed. He immediately slapped upwards on the magazine, hoping that the casing was just trapped in the chamber.

_Be quick. Be quick. Be fucking quick._

He pulled the charging handle to the rear and canted his weapon to the side. The expended casing fell into the dirt and he released the charging handle. The bolt slid forward into place, chambering a round with it, and Max couldn't remember ever being more grateful in all his life.

"When we get back to camp…" He whispered, "I'm going to clean you up and show you a real good time." He let out the rest of his breath and fired.

The smoke was beginning to clear as Max changed magazines. Sometime during the chaos Billy had moved up and was now ducking behind a tree about a meter to his right. He was yelling something.

"-all on line. Wait till the others catch up then we-"

There was a deafening explosion. Max remembered being thrown back and seeing the dirt fly over him before he blacked out.

XxXxXxXx

He didn't remember waking up, only that it felt like he had being staring at a wall a long time before his mind registered what it was. It was a picture of St. Jude, patron of helpless causes, hanging next to a window. He looked around the room. There were about fifteen other beds, all occupied, in the room with him. A nurse came around to his bed and took his pulse and put some morphine into his IV. He lapsed into a dreamless sleep.

He passed the week in a stupor, waking occasionally to see a patient being rolled away and a new one taking his place. Lucy came in to see him, along with the others. Prudence had leaned over him when she came to his bedside and kissed him on the lips and told him he better get well soon or else and Max couldn't be sure but he thought her voice cracked.

XxXxXxXx

Lucy came by frequently, but most the time he was out of it from the morphine. She didn't seem to mind though, she would talk or read quietly by his bed, smooth his hair affectionately and Max would think,  _Lucy, you're an angel_. An angel with brilliant blue eyes and such a tormented smile. And Max wanted to ask why, but inside he already knew.

Jude should have come to see him by now. But he hadn't. Lucy softly told him that Jude had been deported, holding tears back behind her eyes. Max told her it was going to be okay, and she pressed her lips together in a thin little line and patted his hand. And Max thought that maybe that was her polite way of disagreeing with him.

After she left, Max took his crutches and went to the window. The view was of the parking lot. Disappointing, really. He glanced briefly at the man on the bed near the window, both his legs were amputated from the knees down. Max blinked; it was Billy.

"Hey…" Max started weakly.

Billy looked up at him, no spark of recognition in those dead eyes.

"I didn't know we were in the same ward or I'd have come by sooner…"

Billy nodded and went back to looking straight ahead.

"How are you doing? Do you… need anything?" Max was horrible at small talk.

"Thanks, but I'm fine."

"…Okay." Max turned awkwardly to head to his bed.

"Max…" Billy called and he turned around. He pulled his dog tags, on the chain dangled the ring, "…She sent it back."

The next day he was moved to a different ward.

XxXxXxXx

When they released him from the hospital Lucy had taken him in to stay with her and she made him scrambled eggs with cheese every morning for breakfast, or at least had a plate waiting in the fridge when he got up late.

He went back to driving a cab and Sadie and Jojo got back together and everything was  _almost_  like before, but not at all. So, on no particular day, Max went through the walk-in closet in the spare bedroom and dug through all the boxes of Jude's things until he found a letter from his mom. He scribbled down the address on an envelope and then spent the rest of the night trying to write the letter.

XxXxXxXx

Jude had come back, like he knew he would, because Lucy needed him.

And to Max, nothing was wrong, as long as he didn't think about it. As long as he didn't drink too much when he went out with Jude. As long as he didn't try to remember when he was in college and he had stayed out all night with Jude again. That one night, when Max had wondered what he tasted like, and then found himself wanting to know. Max had always been impulsive, so he leaned forward and kissed him. And Jude, after a moment, returned it.

Max was all fire and thirst, and Jude was drawn in. He wondered when it was that he began to see in the dark because he could see every line and contour that formed the other's body and Jude's hands knew the perfect paths on his.

And in the morning when Max awoke with a sleeping Jude in his bed and that fever burning in his skin he had gone and showered last night away. When he came back Jude was awake and getting dressed and Max greeted him like a stranger and Jude had understood.

Now that was all gone away and it didn't matter what could have been; he could see the factional path his life had taken, to this leaden and splintered existence, and what was lost to him. But it didn't matter as long as he didn't think about it.

But it bothered the others. How Max came back but wasn't Max. And wasn't-Max wore his skin, spoke in his voice, and ate hydrocodone like it was candy but was detached from everybody and it killed Jude to think that he might never  _really_  come back. That Max was still far, far away. Because, surely, there were some places people were not meant to be, things they were not meant to know. There had been only a death awaiting him in the jungle. Death and rain and that certain shade of green. And once you had known that, once you tasted and saw and smelled it, it would seep in your skin and stay in your system long after you left.  _What have you seen_ , Jude wondered,  _that makes you shiver in the sunlight? What could you have done that makes you wary of your own reflection?_

Jude never asked, but refused to leave him to craft his own demise. So, Jude threw away all his pills and when Max confronted him about it, he told the truth. He said he didn't need them anymore and Max got angry and threw a temper tantrum, but Jude wasn't worried because at least Max still felt something. Max stomped off into his room and Jude followed.

"Don't run away from us, Max,  _please_. I want to help you." His lilting accent whispered.

"You're a bastard and I wish I'd never met you."

"Do you really now?"

_No._

"Just leave me be, Jude. I'm sick." And it was the truth for him, but Jude didn't believe it and he put his hand on Max's shoulder and squeezed, and Max felt it all too much.

He turned on him and seized Jude's head between his hands, holding him fast, as he crushed his lips against his. Jude froze, and Max pressed harder into him, trying to make him feel it too. Trying to engrave himself upon Jude like an undying statue. His tongue slid across Jude's clenched teeth. It wasn't soft as it should have been; it wasn't nice, like he wanted it to be. And when he pulled away, there was a foreignness in Jude's black eyes that he had never seen before. Maybe it was too late.

"Don't you see, Jude?" Max whispered, their faces still inches apart, "Don't you see how fucking sick I am?"

Jude hadn't known. And how could he? How could he have known that? For as long as he knew him, his relationships had always been brief and uncommitted and he never seemed to mind. And hadn't they said that they were better off as friends because neither off them were good at working out complications? No, that's what Max said and Jude agreed because he didn't want to lose him.

But now all that had been turned over, and Jude realized one of the most beautiful and frustrating things about people was that they  _do_  change, even when you least expect it.

"I'm sorry." Max said as he released him. Jude grabbed his hand and pulled him back.

Max was still so gaunt and Jude's hands fit easily against the sharp edges of his hips. And Jude felt exactly as Max remembered, except now, his hair was longer and pieces of it hung down in front of his eyes.

XxXxXxXx

Afterwards, when he awoke fitted so closely to Jude, closer than skin, he watched the setting sun dye him red and the rise and fall of Jude's chest. He knew that this, with perfect certainty, was the best he could ask for and that he never did anything so great in his life as to earn it.

Afterwards, when they both had made the bed and cleaned up and sat at the table eating macaroni and cheese, Lucy came home and gave them each a smile. And they both smiled back openly and hoped she couldn't see right through them.

It passed like this for a week, furtive glances, touches, that sinking guilt in their stomachs. Jude hated pushing Lucy from his mind when he was with Max because he  _did_  love her, but it was different than before. And she didn't deserve to be lied to.

XxXxXxXx

That morning he walked to the kitchen with heavy steps and she was standing over the sink washing a dish. Maybe she knew what he was going to say because she turned to him, the morning sun catching her hair, and said, "Something's changed."

And he said, yes, something had. She looked so golden and illusionary, Jude thought, if he touched her she'd melt away. She wiped her hands on a towel and looked at Jude, her eyes searching his face for something he wasn't sure of. Guilt? It was written in every line.

"Maybe we've both changed." She reached forward and touched his cheek softly then walked away.

XxXxXxXx

When Lucy told Max she was going to move in with Sadie and Jojo and Prudence he had felt so horrible. Lucy, who had vouched for him countless times in front of their parents. Lucy, who had never failed to send him a birthday card. Lucy, who had come to see him at the hospital and taken him in afterwards. How did he thank her? By being selfish and rash and wanting what wasn't his.

No, he told her, it was my fault. Jude loves you.

I know, she said, but he loves you too and we've all changed so much. Then she gave him a hug and said that she was sure it was for the better.

Oh, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Max said, You're a queen, a goddess among women and you've been a much better sister than I've been a brother, and he kissed the top of her head. She laughed at him and ruffled his hair and that was her way of telling him,  _You're welcome_.

XxXxXxXx

That New Year's they were all gathered in Café Huh? for one of Sadie's gigs, three of them crammed into a booth next to the stage, cheering as Sadie and Jojo sang. Lucy was up there too, because, as Sadie put it, the girl could carry a tune. She had at first, refused, but after a few drinks and much encouragement from her friends she had joined the other two.

"And when I get home to you, I find the things that you do will make me feel all right…"

Prudence was giggling and trying to clap along with the music, but failed miserably because of all she'd drunk.

"You know I feel all right…"

Once the song ended Lucy got off stage quickly, cheeks red.

"What are you embarrassed about? You sounded great." Max side-hugged her as she buried her face in her hands.

"I've never done that before! I was so afraid I'd sing off key or something."

"I don't think anyone here would have noticed anyway." Jude gestured around the room at all the inebriated patrons.

Lucy smiled and Sadie and Jojo took their bows onstage. They began packing their instruments and gear away.

"You guys about ready to get out of here?" she asked. Jude and Max nodded.

"Already?" Prudence put on her sad face.

"Some of us have to be at work tomorrow." Lucy said helplessly.

"Fine then." She stepped out of the booth and tripped. Jude laughed and caught her arm before she fell.

"Prudence, you should really learn your limit."

"Yeah…"

Sadie leaned over the edge of the stage, "We'll be ready to go soon if you all wanna head to the van." She tossed the keys to Lucy who helped guide Prudence out of the café.

"Thanks, Sadie, but we can make it back."

"You boys aren't driving are you?" Sadie folded her arms and Max was suddenly reminded of his mother.

"No, no, we're walking. It's not that far, anyway."

"All right then. Have a good New Year and we'll see you guys later." They gave her a hug and said goodbye to Jojo and then to Lucy and Prudence in the parking lot.

Once they got back to their apartment, Max curled up on the couch with some blankets and lit a cigarette. Jude told him he looked ridiculous, a pile of blankets with just a tiny opening for him to smoke. Max said he didn't care, it was way too cold. Jude peeled a layer away, just enough to plant a kiss on the corner of his lips and press his cold hands to the back of Max's neck. Max growled and pushed his hands away and Jude laughed and sat on the couch next him, leaning against his side. Max passed him the cigarette and lifted the blankets so he could shift beneath them.

Jude grinned, and Max felt like he had been wandering for a very long time and had just found home.


End file.
